Ed Luttwack is one of the security analysts and military historians who, over a year ago, pointed out that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was severely undermanned and under-equipped and therefore unlikely to complete a mission as grand as knocking over the Ukrainian government.

Today in UnHerd, he argues that China is afflicted with a severe shortage of intelligent, fit young men to serve in the military, especially a military that has ambitions of fighting for expansion:

In China’s case, a manpower shortage undercuts military spending in the PLA’s ground forces and naval forces, and soon it will affect manned air units as well. The PLA ground forces now stand at some 975,000, a very small number for a country that has 13,743 miles of borders with 14 countries — including extreme high-mountain borders where internal combustion engines lose power, jungle-covered borders where remote observation is spoiled by foliage, Russian-river borders with endemic smuggling, and the border with India’s Ladakh where an accumulation of unresolved Chinese intrusions have forced each side to deploy substantial ground forces, with at least 80,000 on the Chinese side.

Read the whole thing.